crashing finder loop

Thanks for your contribution, im sure someone who is experienceing the same problem will really be happy for this..

~Ryan

Wow, wow.

Wow.

Any idea which file?

I had this problem. I logged in from another account and everything was fine. But then back to the original account and things flashed. After several hours of poking around and reading threads it turned out to be a file attachment from Mail that I had dragged to my desktop and somehow it got an Asian character in the file name. I had previously removed most Asian fonts and Finder freaked. Believe it or not. Others have had the same (or similar) issue.

Happened to me -- for the second time in two months. I am getting ready to fix it now, doing what one of the AppleCare super guru's had me do (two techs later and after two hours of futzing and working within the shell as they spoke to me over the loudspeaker.)

I have no idea what caused the first finder loop problem. I was emptying trash, and it told me I couldn't do it because something was in use (which wasn't) and did the finder flash thing. Everything on the desktop disappeard. The dock still was visible, and I could still launch apps. I could see the desktop and hard drives from my G4 -- I just couldn't get to them.

The final solution to the fix was: set up a 'test' administrator account, using test as the admin and test as the password. Made sure everything of importance was backed up to other machine. Then I set up a new administrator and had to set permissions on all the folders on my hard drive. Fonts and all. Very tedious. Had to set preferences on all my software, but at least I didn't have to reinstall everything.

So, today my boss sends me a file that he says is really funny .... a .asf file from his windoze box ... and when I drag it over to the desktop my finder freaks again. Found out that a coworker in OSX (not Tiger) got the same file and said she couldn't open it.

The first time I got the finder loop problems was two days after getting my machine back from the Apple Store after a total gutting. Machine is barely six months old and after four months they replaced: Processors, logic board, hard drive, power supply. Yep. Gutted. And for all of their complicated testing software, it kept coming up as okay -- yet it would crash on them.

An $1880 machine after educational discount ran a total of nearly $1,600 in warrantied repairs.

I've really been very disappointed with this G5 -- I'm starting to think that the whole area of personal computing has taken a backseat to the iPod (of which I do have one). I suppose they know who butters their bread, but at the expense of us power users who have been loyal followers of Apple -- even in the lean times.

I don't know if the finder/looping/crashing is a problem in the software or hardware, but all I know is I am getting ready to set up yet another admin account. There's got to be a better way ...

Actually, I was looking into it when you posted!

Anything that saves me time is a lifesaver!

THANKS!

THRILLED! Beyond words ....

I did lose a big folder on my desktop, but I had backed it up -- all my prefs, etc. seem to be just fine. I do have a few permissions to reset/repair, but for the most part -- WICKED COOOOOL!

thanks again 🙂

Well folks ... I was thrilled with Path Finder for about 5 minutes before my finder crapped out again. So, yesterday I did an archive and system restore. Seems to have done the trick, and it was much easier and quicker than what the muckety-mucks at AppleCare had me go through last time. I only had to reinstall Photoshop CS2 because of missing system folder items, but other than that -- everything was in order and I didn't have to place new permissions on any of my folders and all the preferences were retained.

I found this on macoshints http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060308010111601

there's another somewhat more straightforward solution to this problem. Logged in as the second user, just use sudo mv in the Terminal to move all of the troublesome user's Desktop files to a new spot:
$ sudo mkdir /Users/username/Documents/tempfolder
$ sudo mv /Users/username/Desktop/* /Users/username/Documents/tempfolder

Here's how I FINALLY fixed this problem:

As a different user, I also downloaded Path Finder. I easily accessed the user desktop that kept crashing.

I was able to drag files with Asian font names (on the crashing desktop) into a new folder (somewhere in documents). Now, my usual user account is crashless.

Thanks for the help

You got it.

I just had to do it again after dragging a text clipping to the desktop that somehow ened up with an asian character for a name.

What you have said sounds very familiar, I am not super tech savvy and accidently deleted my system fonts. I am stuck in the abyss of the finder loop, I cannot see anything on my desktop and have tried a few of the suggestions you have posted but am feeling a bit lost still. I tried the cocoatech.com and downloaded that ap and also Pacifist but because I have no desktop I can't open any of these applications. I've also tried to start up with the Install 1 disk by holding C...and also have tried to start in safe mode with shift/opt/delete. Can anyone help? I'm rookie of the year so be patient... Thanks!

G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6)